Highland Park

The Facts
What It Is: A 3.76-square-mile section of L.A west of South Pasadena and south of Eagle RockPopulation: 58,051Ethnic Diversity: 73% Hispanic and/or white, 12% Caucasian, and 3% African American

Key PlayersIn the early 20th century, Highland Park was a mecca for intellectual practitioners of the Arts & Crafts movement, including painter William Lees Judson and printer/ typographer Clyde Browne, who built the now-shabby Arroyo San Encino, a gathering place for artists. It was also the location of many a silent film—one of L.A’s first movie studios was located next to Sycamore Grove Park.

Telling MomentOne of L.A’s earliest subdivisions, Highland Park asked to be annexed to the city of Los Angeles in the late 1890s—it needed water and it wanted the bigger city’s police force to help control the wild saloons that had sprouted up around what is now Sycamore Grove Park.

Then & NowCharles F. Lummis settled here after writing about his 1884 walk from Ohio to take a job at the Los Angeles Times. His handmade castle, El Alisal (“Place of the Sycamore”), is open to the public. Today, Highland Park isn’t as affluent as its hillside neighbors Washington Heights and Monterey Hills, but its increasingly boho-meets-bodega atmosphere is drawing more and more of the Prius-and-chai set.

Our Favorite…
Park: Sycamore Park, with playgrounds and climbing structures, the Hiner Bandstand, tennis courts, families out on Sunday afternoon and multitudinous picnic tables and barbecues shaded by old sycamores; taco trucks park on Figueroa in case you forgot a picnicLibrary: Arroyo Seco Regional Branch on Figueroa, whose architecture pays tribute to El AlisalArts Organization: The Arroyo Arts Collective, sponsoring art shows, community art projects and an annual tour of artist’ homesAttraction: Heritage Square, a collection of Victorian mansions, some of which were moved here to save them from demolitionWeb Sites: historichighlandpark.org, hpht.org

Best HangoutsPets with Fez, an incense-filled weaving studio on York (lessons on jumbo looms!); the gastropub on York called, of course, the York; and, for underage drinkers, Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, home to 500 specialty sodas.

What He Said“This Arroyo would make one of the greatest parks in the world!”
–President Teddy Roosevelt to Charles Lummis, 1911(Twelve years later, Lummis pressed the city into dedicating 60 acres to the Arroyo Seco Park System. Bully for us!)